How a dog named Smut wore out his presidential welcome

12:25 PM CDT on Friday, September 5, 2003

By SCOTT FARWELL / The Dallas Morning News

CRAWFORD, Texas – This could be a story about President George W. Bush, who, for relaxation each August holds court in a brush-clogged canyon out behind his ranch.

It could be a story about the president's neighbors, who after three years have learned to tolerate the fighter jets and helicopters that shred the air and shatter their beloved peace.

Or, it could be a story about a small Texas town, about the politics of trust, about a place where the people are so earnest and honest that a country church leaves its doors open, just in case somebody needs to stop by and pray.

Courtesy Bill and LaJuana Westerfield's 10-year-old grandson, Jacob, holds Smut three years ago.

But it's not.

This is a story about a dog.

His name is Smut, and he belongs to Bill and LaJuana Westerfield, who live in a low-slung brick house shaded by hackberry trees, next to a pasture where the rancher-in-chief catches his copter rides.

Living next door to the president can be frustrating and fascinating, the Westerfields and other neighbors along Prairie Chapel Road say. It means you have to mind your manners, something Smut never figured out.

Smut likes to swim in the president's pool.

He is a purebred Catahoula (think Blue Tick Hound with short ears and a snub nose), which, in part, explains his fondness for water, and why he is able to fake out the men and women trained to protect the president.

Catahoulas, the state dog of Louisiana, are intelligent, loyal, have calico-colored coats and webbed feet. They were bred to chase hogs through swamps.

Mr. Westerfield says it all began three years ago as he was bouncing across the back pasture in his old truck, Smut at the heel. Maybe it was the sound of work crews, or the smell of slow-cooked beef brisket over at then-Gov. George Bush's place, but Smut took off.

Mr. Westerfield says his dog never really came back.

"We just couldn't keep him home after that," he says, laughing. "We chained him up some, but I hate to do that to a dog. Every time we'd turn him loose, that idiot was gone."

As a pup, Smut romped carefree through the countryside outside Crawford. He yapped at construction crews on the Bush ranch, and later, as he grew into a rogue adolescent, he befriended and bedeviled the U.S. Secret Service.

So the Westerfields bought a shock collar and gave the zapper to the guard at the gate to Mr. Bush's 1,600-acre ranch. If Smut's wanderlust was rewarded with a little jolt, the Westerfields reasoned, the year-old pup would figure out his boundaries.

Nope.

They knew they were in trouble one winter morning when an exasperated Secret Service agent called to complain about Smut.

"I said, 'Shock him,' " says Mr. Westerfield.

"We did, but he won't leave," the agent replied.

"Well, whip him then."

"Oh, we don't want to do that, Mr. Westerfield."

"Throw rocks at him."

"We can't do that."

When Mrs. Westerfield arrived to pick up Smut, he was curled up on the floor of the guardhouse, warm, fed and contented.

The mixed message reinforced Smut's hardheaded nature, the Westerfields say, and by November 2001, their dog's mischief had curdled the good nature of the G-men assembled near Mr. Bush's gate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was scheduled to visit President Bush at his ranch, a high-stakes meeting that led to a treaty limiting ballistic missiles. But every time security experts would set a field of motion detectors, Smut would come darting through, en route to the presidential pool.

Flak-jacketed agents guarding the gate to Mr. Bush's ranch would not answer questions about Smut. Their boss, Jim Boen, says he does not remember the dog.

But several neighbors, and Kenneth Englebrecht, the foreman of Mr. Bush's ranch, say Smut's antics were hard to forget.

"He's not the only dog that's been in there, but I remember him," says Mr. Englebrecht, a taciturn man with a square jaw and wide brimmed hat, whose family sold the Bushes the place in 1999. "It's one of the things we deal with out here in the country."

The Westerfields decided to keep Smut tied, at least until the fuss surrounding Mr. Putin's visit died down. But, one afternoon, he slipped out of his collar.

President Bush was giving Mr. Putin and his staff a coveted tour of the ranch, bouncing across creeks and country roads.

Mrs. Westerfield noticed Smut was gone as she walked across the driveway to her art studio. In the distance, she could see and hear her dog, barking and chasing after the president and his visitors.

"He chased those Russian dignitaries all over that place," says Mrs. Westerfield, with an impish grin. "Poor old Smut. That's when we knew we had to get rid of him."

In the end, Mr. Westerfield even consented to castration for Smut.

"We thought that might slow him down, but it didn't," he says. "That old boy lost everything because he wouldn't stay off the president's place."

The Westerfields say they won't get another dog until Mr. Bush leaves office, hopefully, they say, in 2008.

As for Smut, nobody is quite sure what happened.

The Westerfields took him to their daughter's place across Crawford, 10 miles away.

But, a few months ago, he disappeared from his foster home.

"Somebody said they saw him in town," Mrs. Westerfield says.

He was headed toward the president's ranch.

E-mail sfarwell@dallasnews.com